The second my face felt the thick, clammy Havana air, my stress melted away. My contour makeup also melted away so my face looked like I’d just witnessed the opening of the Ark of the Covenant, minus the whole Nazi thing.

Despite my melted face, I was excited to experience Cuban culture. That experience would involve drinking alcohol served in hollowed-out fruit, dancing to a fuck ton of reggaeton, catching some sun, wearing outfits that involve gold hoops and coochie cutters and, naturally, telling people I’m Pitbull’s girlfriend but that he stayed in Miami for work.

But because I’m nothing if not a nerd for sociocultural examination and discussion (see 90 percent of my columns and all the dates I’ve ruined for proof), I was also fascinated in learning how a socialist, communist country functions on a daily basis, and there was a lot to dissect and study there. I did so with the help of a friend in Cuba who is a Ph.D. student studying Cuba’s agricultural history. I had been warned before my trip that Cuba was not a vacation spot that would force me to leave my top pants button undone on the plane ride home. After all, the country strictly regulates food products among its citizens to assure equal distribution and has felt the decades-long effects of the U.S. embargo that ended almost all imports.

During the harshest years of the embargo, people were starving. So the fact that the majority of the food most readily available is ham and cheese sandwiches and spaghetti that’s basically hot, thick noodles covered in tomato soup and ham is not surprising. It fills your belly quick.

When President Obama (side note: I miss u, B) lifted the embargo last year, it changed people’s access to food and ability to create a sustainable livelihood.

As my friend explained, just a year or two prior it was practically unheard of for locals to own small restaurant businesses. It just wasn’t possible with the lack of ingredients available, especially as the ingredients that did come into the country were prioritized to hotels, restaurants and other services that catered to tourists. So the fact that someone can now buy a pizza from a small cafe owned by a single mom is incredible. (Local tip: Cubans eat their pizza folded in half while running to catch a taxi, which is how I want to do all my running from here on out).

As of June, the dark orange lord, Voldetrump, announced new restrictions to travel and business in Cuba, reversing much of what Obama had accomplished when he lifted the embargo. The new limitations went into effect almost immediately, which will undoubtedly affect those small cafes. Funny enough, when Cubans asked me where I was from and I told them I’m Mexican and live in the U.S., they almost always responded with “Oh, your president hates your people, huh?”

Yeah, man. He hates all of us.

One of my favorite things to do when visiting foreign countries is grocery shopping. The markets I visited in Cuba had food items mostly behind glass counters manned by shopkeepers who hand people their allowed amount of products. You can’t walk in and buy all of the powder milk, for example. Equal distribution. There was one type of potato chip I saw, which was more of a flavored wheat puff. It’s vastly different from the supermarkets of America, with their endless piles of ‘roided up vegetables and 47 types of Flaming Hot Cheetos alone.

People wait in long lines for eggs and WiFi cards. Then we came upon the longest line I had seen in Cuba. A line that could rival one outside a churro donut shop in Brooklyn or a free STI testing clinic in Pacific Beach. This one, however, was for one of the most sought after, heavily regulated items available in the entire country: ice cream.

A bit of history: In the ‘60s, Fidel Castro had Cuba’s ambassador to Canada to ship him a bunch of ice-cream from Howard Johnson hotel restaurants. He loved that dank Ho-Jo ice cream so goddamn much he decided all Cubans should have access to its creamy, cold deliciousness. And thus, he socialized ice cream. Fucking ice cream! For the people! Castro built an ice-cream factory so Cuba could produce its own frosty goodness, and then set up a huge state-run ice cream parlor called Coppelia. The two-story building is a beautifully designed midcentury structure with a Jetsons-esque mod, futuristic vibe. It’s rad. Obviously, I had to pose outside of it in my vacation coochie cutters.

People wait an hour or more at Coppelia to get a scoop of one of the 26 flavors it sells at around four cents. For Cubans, who on average make $25 a month, that means they too can indulge in a sweet treat because it’s not a luxury, it’s a basic right.

What was especially fascinating was finding out that there’s an underground market for ice cream. While American corporations or teenage Forever 21 employees may steal some of their product to sell at a higher cost to people with money but no access to their goods, Cubans working at the Coppelia factory do the same thing, selling stolen ice-cream to small businesses so they can sell to tourists at a higher cost, saving them a two-hour wait for a scoop of chocolate. People want to make that dollar, even in a communist society.

I ate their ice cream, which was thick and sickly sweet, knowing all too well that it was much more than just a scoop of vanilla.